


you can breathe with me

by tunakim



Category: Dragon Quest Series, Dragon Quest XI
Genre: Erik POV, Erik: “love and affection? Idk her”, Fluff, M/M, could b rated G but El shoves his hands up someone’s shirt so idk, el: “false. I am right here”, hero as eleven/el
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 10:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16931445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tunakim/pseuds/tunakim
Summary: Erik wasn’t used to being in love. He tells himself he would honestly prefer not to and partake in other things instead, but he was never that strong. Luckily, El is patient, and very much in love with him, too.Alternatively: Erik is embarrassed.





	you can breathe with me

The first time El genuinely riled Erik up was about his shirt.

They were the only ones left awake in the dead of night. They huddled by the tiny crackle of the flickering sun burnt fire. The gray-silver pot above it rested warmly, steaming the leftovers of their hearty meal. Erik yawned, resting his elbows on the dry log behind him. The coolness of autumn was fresh on his skin. 

El sat close to him, leaning tiredly into his side. Everyone else was asleep, curled up in sleeping bags and makeshift pillows back in the tent. The sky above them was black and wide, dotted with white stars. The star of the Luminary - El’s star - shone a brilliant, beauteous blue.

They stayed like that for a while, bodies tucked neatly into each other. It felt like being by the fireplace on an ambient winter day, enclosed inside by thick sheets of powdery snow. It almost reminded Erik that they weren’t on the run from Heliodor’s deadliest knights. Absolutely blissful.

“Are you cold?” El whispered first after a while. He shifted, nestling further into Erik’s side. Erik had warned him that he wasn’t the most comfortable headrest, but El didn’t seem to mind. El didn’t seem to mind a lot of things about him.

“Not really,” Erik whispered back. He took in a slow, gradual breath, stifling another yawn. He stretched back a little bit, absentmindedly noting how his shirt rode up in the front. The heat of the fire blazed gently across the skin of his stomach. “We’re right next to the fire, ain’t we?” 

“...Yeah,” El responded, a beat too short. Erik turned his head, or at least, as much as he could with El propped on his entire left side. El’s skin was flushed an earthy peach-pink. Erik couldn’t tell if it was the afterglow of the fire or not.

“Are you?” Erik murmured. El blinked. “Cold, that is.” 

“Oh, I’m not,” he said softly. “I just asked because of your shirt.” Erik quirked an eyebrow, trying to get El to reply to his confusion, but it was fruitless. El’s eyes were fixated in the flames, staring at something Erik couldn’t pinpoint. 

“My… shirt,” Erik repeated carefully. “My shirt?” He twisted his head to meet El’s shifting eyes, who had no choice but to meet his confused stare. “Look, pal, you’re gonna have to fill me in. What’s goin’ on with my shirt?”

At first, El’s expression was stagnant. Then, as if thinking, his face scrunched into a face Erik hadn’t ever seen before. It was new and funny and adorable. Erik summoned all the dormant pep power energy in him to stop himself from laughing.

“It shows a lot,” El started. His eyes were shifty. It almost looked like he was pouting (maybe he was). “And I thought. It seems chilly.” 

The bizarre confusion ebbed off, and Erik looked down to his chest. He gave it a pat, and fiddled with the ends of the string laced through the front. 

“It can be, sometimes,” Erik said, oblivious. He tugged on his shirt, yanking it forward. “Chilly…” He paused. “It doesn’t show that much,” he mumbled. El seemed like he wanted to say something so bad that it was straining him to do so, but whatever it was stayed shut in his mouth. 

Instead, El’s arm raised, draping itself over Erik’s chest. His left hand, emblazoned with the faint mark of The Luminary, hovered over the dip in Erik’s shirt. Without a word, he dragged his fingertips across his skin, touch feather-light on the shallow slopes of his chest. His hand was cool, but seared against the rawness of his bare skin. 

Then, El’s hand dropped down, resting on top of Erik’s waist. He let out a soft exhale, breath blowing back his long, brown strands of hair. If Erik wasn’t so flustered, he would’ve brushed El’s hair back. 

“So that’s it,” Erik murmured, heart still pounding. Somehow, he was overcome with an urge to laugh. “I didn’t think you would care about that sort of thing.”

“I do,” El replied simply. He seemed sort of embarrassed. Erik cracked, letting out a small snort. He couldn’t take it.

“You like it? This little window here?” Erik asked, mischievous. He felt nervous, but it wasn’t making him drown. It was a new, airy-light sort of nervousness. Erik pulled on the deep collar of his shirt, and then let go, letting it fall back against his skin.

El’s eyes slowly looked down, and then went back up, blinking slowly at Erik’s expectant gaze. 

“Is that the purpose of it?” El said, seemingly deadpan, but there was a split second flash of a grin to give it away. Bastard, Erik thought affectionately. 

“Do you want it to be?” Erik shot back, cheeky. El rolled his eyes, but there was a small, sweet smile on the curve of his lips. He couldn’t have hid it even if he tried. 

“Mhm,” El hummed in reply, neither confirming or denying. His eyes were sleepy, and his smile was loose on his lips. With a cool hand, he cupped the side of Erik’s neck, bringing him close to peck a kiss on the corner of his mouth. It was clumsy, drowsy and affectionate, a combination that Erik didn’t know he liked. 

He leaned back in to give El a soft kiss on the lips, and El sighed into him, lofty and content. 

“You’re warm,” El whispered. 

“Like I said—the fire,” Erik whispered back.

Discreetly, with no warning, El’s hands slid down his sides, reaching Erik’s hip bones. Suddenly, Erik felt El’s cooling hands against his stomach, on his ribs, and then on his chest. His hands lightly pressed his tingling skin. El’s face was downturned, somehow bashful, even in his boldness. 

Erik’s heartbeat spiked, thudding insistently beneath his chest. He wondered if El could feel its quick and flustered beats right under his palm. He didn’t remember what it was like to breathe. Had he ever even learned?

“Uh.” Erik’s mouth hung open, face burnt. El’s eyes met his, curious and wanting, and Erik couldn’t even blink. He swallowed, trying to respond, but no words would come. His heart struggled in the strained space in his chest. “Uh. I.” He sealed his lips together, cheeks steaming, and gave up, resting his forehead on the crook of El’s shoulder. 

El began laughing silently, and Erik could feel the floating vibrations of his laughter adjacent to his ear. If he wasn’t so embarrassed, he would be listening hard, vowing to remember the sound, but he physically couldn’t — he was still trying to handle his body’s involuntary reboot.

“I’m sorry, Erik,” El laughed airily, and slid his hands out. As they brushed his bare stomach, his insides squeezed. El then began tightening the strings in the front. It had gotten a bit loose. It was a strangely intimate gesture, Erik thought in the back of his zapped head. He was rather far away at the moment. 

“Okay,” Erik mumbled, words finally back. “I know you’re not.” Leaning slightly away from El, he let out an exasperated sigh, pushing his hair back hastily with his fingers. If he was pleasantly warm before, he was absolutely boiling now.

“Was that too much?” El asked. 

“A little too late to ask,” Erik said, red in the face. He had half the mind to make a big deal, but he couldn't bring himself to. El’s expression was brimming with too much genuine sincerity to tease. Damn him! El didn’t have a bad bone anywhere in his body. “It was, well,” Erik bit the inside of his lip. “I, uh…”

“Oh.” El shook his head, and paused, as if realizing something. Then, he tilted a little away, as if trying to hide, but the guilt was clear on his face. “No, no. I should’ve asked. It’s my bad.”

“No, that’s not—that’s not it,” Erik sputtered, hands suddenly tensing and then unclenching. “I didn’t—I just.” He let out a stifled groan of frustration, dragging his hands down his face. “El, look...itwasfine.”

“...What?”

“Itwasfine,” Erik muttered, no less intelligible. El blinked at him, and Erik saw the gears gradually turning in his head. Erik turned away, unwilling and unable to meet his gaze. He was too much of a mess. “Okay. Time to stop talking about this. Bedtime—it’s bedtime! Let’s go to bed!”

“You seem pretty awake to me,” El replied, tone teasing. Erik wanted to grind his teeth, grab El by the shoulders, and shake him until his skull fell out. Or maybe he just wanted to do it to himself.

“Is that so,” Erik mumbled. He stood up, brushing off dust that wasn’t there, and began walking briskly towards his bags. “You seemed pretty tired to me earlier, too!”

“I’m not tired anymore,” El insisted. Erik heard El’s shuffling steps behind him, but he refused to turn around. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up waiting for El’s touch, but it didn’t come. “...It is late,” El said after a while.

“It is,” Erik said stiffly. His body didn’t feel like his own, and everything was coming out wrong. “Time for bed. Sleep time. Let’s—bed. Now, preferably.” Erik kneeled down by his bag and took out the covers, loosening them from their tight folding. His face was burning.

“...” El didn’t say anything, and he didn’t move. He was soundless, and continued to stand where he was, and Erik could feel his gaze on the back of his head. “...Erik?”

“What?” Erik said sharply, whirling around. Immediately, guilt bit at him. El’s mouth was open in a small o, and seemed smaller. Erik sighed, more at himself, and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I’m sorry. That was stupid. What is it?”

“I upset you, didn’t I?” El said, words soft, and guilt bit at him again, sharp and unpleasant. “I didn’t even ask if you were okay with it.”

“Damn,” Erik cursed, hot shame dousing his nerves. “No, I…” 

“I’m not usually like, like that,” El fretted, cutting him off. Erik tried to interject, but El was too lost in himself. “It’s just—no, I mean—I’m sorry,” he sighed, deflating like a balloon. “I won’t do it again.”

“No,” Erik said again, and took a step towards El. El’s attention snapped to him, hesitant yet questioning. Erik walked back over, and felt the heat of the fire approaching in kind. “You don’t have to...apologize. Not for that. Not for anything.” El swallowed. He stayed silent, eyes searching Erik’s expression for an explanation. Erik could feel the curious trail of El’s gaze over his skin. “I just…” El took a step towards him, face close to his, but his arms stayed at his side. 

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” El offered, quiet.

“I do, I think,” Erik replied, just as quiet. “It’s fine.” He paused, and then met El’s eyes, vibrant and blue even in the dark. “I’m just not used to—this. It’s embarrassing.” He made a wide arm motion, pointing to him and then at El. “It’s new to me,” he admitted, and the effort of it made his lungs want to burst.

El nodded. “So it was okay?” Erik nodded back, bashfully scratching the back of his neck. “It’s the same for me,” El said, and a strange knot unraveled in Erik’s chest. He hadn’t even realized it to be there. 

“I thought you had a girl back home,” Erik blurted out, mouth ahead of his brain. 

“Gemma?” El seemed taken back. He looked into the unseeable horizon, pondering for a minute, and then slowly shook his head. “She is—was my best friend,” he murmured. “Nothing more, nothing less.” There was something indescribably painful in his face. In it was the same expression El had when he returned to Cobblestone, eyes frozen over with tears at the rubble and the dead air. Erik wanted to apologize, but it felt selfish. It would’ve been worth nothing. 

“Okay,” Erik said. “It doesn’t even matter if you did, it’s simply that, that I, I’m not good at relationships, and I don’t want you to think that you’re doing something wrong.” The words came out of his mouth all stiff and uncomfortable and wrong, and he wanted to say more, but his body wouldn’t let him. “Sorry. I’m being an idiot. I shouldn’t be talking about this.”

“No,” El interjected, stern yet gentle. His hand came up to the side of Erik’s arm, and something inside his chest gave. “Don’t say that you’re sorry. You don’t have to.”

“Okay,” Erik whispered back, throat barely there. He hoped El understood. “And, for the record,” he blurted out, “I like it. What you did just then. And you.” Erik let the words hang in the air for a solid 10 seconds before groaning, forehead falling into the palm of his hand. “I’m sorry. This really isn’t my forte.”

“I know,” El replied, a laugh on the edge of his voice. He was smiling. “I like you, too.”

Erik felt a sudden rush that El may be the only other person he has ever truly loved, and it scared him shitless. But Erik shoved it back, spiteful of it, and let it drift away as El kissed him, steady and comforting.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey if ur here thx so much!! This pairing and this game is so good, they deserve to be written about. Tbh if anyone wants to talk DQ11 my dms on Twitter/tumblr are OPEN
> 
> If u liked pls hmu with a kudos or even a simple “hell yea babey!!” Id rly appreciate it!
> 
> Also if anyone here is interested in some sylv/hendrik keep an eye out..........it perhaps may come soon


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